Fighting cancer. Cancer warrior. Survivor.
All terms I've heard in relation to cancer treatment. All terms I've used at one point or another. Now, terms I'm unfortunately familiar with. I know a few friends who are also intimately familiar with what it means to fight cancer, but for those who haven't climbed this mountain, do you know what it means to "fight" cancer?
It means being exhausted down to my bones. I am tired all the time. I go to bed tired. I wake up tired. I nap every day. I'm so tired that I can't even sleep (yeah, noodle on that one for a while). I'm just TIRED. Between the cancer and the chemo, I'm wiped out. And I have no energy for anything. A trip to the grocery store equals a two hour nap. This is beyond frustrating as I used to enjoy being a very busy person. Resting seems like a ridiculous way to fight, but that is battle strategy numero uno these days.
Fighting cancer means I have no control over anything except my own thoughts. Want to cut my body? Sure, I can't stop you. Need to pump me full of poison to blast the cancer out of me? Sounds like a great time, be my guest. Want to take all my hair, my endurance, my free time, my volunteer work, my plans and flush them all down the toilet - have at it. The only thing I can control in this whole stupid experience is how I think about these things that keep happening to me, whether I want them to or not. Most days the power of positive thinking wins out. But sometimes, my thoughts spiral to a dark place that involves googling statistics that I've now pinky-promised 3 important people not to google ever again. I actively have to keep my thoughts on the right track or it gets real ugly, real fast.
Every great warrior needs a side kick. And I've found mine for this battle. She is the counselor who works at my cancer treatment center. And she is AMAZING. She is a survivor herself so she gets it. She understands the challenge of going through this process with young kids. She knows the middle-of-the-night sleepless temptation to google things you shouldn't. She knows that the loss of control over nearly everything is like getting pounded over and over by huge, unrelenting ocean waves. She gets it. and she makes me feel normal in all of this.
Like many locked in battle, I have family and friends on the sidelines who are hurting and worried too. And though I'm the only one that can fight this fight, they feel my challenges and my pain deeply. It's hard watching your kids be stressed about bringing any germs into the house. It's physically painful hearing your 6 year old frantically tell his friend to wash her hands so his mom doesn't get more sick and die. It's hard to cry to my husband about how much this sucks and see how helpless he feels to take any of it away for me. And I keep saying how thankful I am that it's me who is sick and not either of my kids - but I am someone's kid, and she is scared and stressed and doesn't deserve to watch her child go through this either.
It's still just cancer. I'm still pushing through this with a big smile on my bald head. But I am further exhausted by all this talk of fighting. I'm not brave or strong. I'm not an actual warrior. If anything, I'm desperate. Desperate to get my life back to normal. Desperate for my kids to know that I'm not going anywhere. Desperate for this to not be my ENTIRE LIFE any more. Ugh.
In closing, cancer is stupid. Having cancer is stupid. Everything is stupid. I need a nap.
Ugh, this sucks. Can I say that you're right? It is stupid and it does suck and it isn't fair.
ReplyDeleteBut like having a baby, when your body takes over and it hurts like hell and then, eventually, it's done...and you look back and think, "How the hell did I do that?! How the hell did that come out of me?! And why the hell does it have to happen that way?!" Well, you don't get a cooing baby at the end of this, but hopefully when you're done, you'll be ending the sleepless exhaustion instead of starting it.
PS: You're great, and you're honest, and your God loves you and cares about you even more than everyone else combined...and he's got all of you. As I tell me doula clients, you ARE doing this. Whether or not you think you can, whether or not it feels like you'll ever finish, you ARE doing it. And you've got great support along the way.
PPS: That doesn't mean it doesn't still suck along the way.
PPPS: Have you seen the deleted scene from The Prisoner of Azkaban where Michael Gambon slipped a whoopie cushion into Daniel Radcliffe's sleeping bag, and makes Alan Rickman laugh? Because you should watch them all giggle at a fart joke.